The story of the Mosaic Mural
It all started when John said “I fancy doing the clock tower!” This was at a mosaic making class at South Queensferry Community Education Centre in the High Street. That’s the building with the historic Jubilee Clock Tower. The mosaic classes were run by Gary Smith, who had created Common Ground Arts, whose purpose was to bring opportunities and resources for creative arts to people who might otherwise not have them. So in the class John created a magnificent mosaic panel of the Clock Tower and started the story of the outstanding local attraction The South Queensferry Mosaic Mural.
Other members of the group wanted to make versions of other High Street features, and someone said let’s make a mural. From then on it just grew. By this time I had joined the Common Ground Arts team and I drew up a design for the whole mural. It was to feature not only distinctive High Street buildings and scenes, but other aspects of Queensferry’s location and history.
Then it just grew. We ran classes and workshops for months for something like two years, mostly at the Community Education Centre huts, just off The Loan, but also at SQF museum, at the Priory Church, at Queensferry Churches Care in the Community base. A lot of people contributed; local people, old and young, older people affected by stroke and dementia, young adults affected by learning disabilities, visitors to the town, including two from New Zealand. After two years of work and creative fun, we had created a total of 24 mosaic panels with a combined length of 14.2 metres.
The folk who started with the Clock Tower and other panels had originally proposed that the finished mural would be installed on the retaining wall of South Queensferry Public Library. For a whole lot of reasons, this turned out to be unsuitable. We put some of the finished panels on display at the Scotmid Co-op store on The Loan. Everybody loved them! “They must go somewhere special! Somewhere more central, in the heart of the town” So we set about finding a good location. This was a long and arduous process. While the panels were in storage, we considered at least 8 possible locations. It really was looking like a lost cause when we were indeed blessed – saved, even – and asked would we like to put the work in the newly regenerated and ideal spot, the beautiful South Queensferry Walled Garden. Yes, we would, thank you very much. Somewhere special, in the heart of the town.
By the way, the available space, against the South Wall of the garden was, you guessed it 14.2 metres long.